New Crew’s First Week Ends with Space Biology and Advanced Technology
The renewed seven-member Expedition 72 crew wrapped up its week researching how blood flows from the brain to the heart and how muscles and bones respond to exercising in space. The International Space Station residents also conducted vision checks and serviced a variety of science hardware.
New NASA Flight Engineer Nichole Ayers kicked off her first run of the Drain Brain 2.0 experiment on Friday setting up gear in the Columbus laboratory module and collecting data to measure the volume of blood flowing through her neck. Doctors want more insight into how the lack of gravity impacts cardiac function from the brain to the heart to improve health screening for crews in space and promote new treatments for heart conditions on Earth.
Takuya Onishi, JAXA’s (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut and flight engineer, worked throughout Friday setting up a space exercise experiment in the Tranquility module. Onishi first installed a motion capture system and its associated components then recorded his workout on the advanced resistive exercise device that mimics free weights on Earth. Results may help researchers design effective exercise programs to counteract the effects of weightlessness including bone loss and muscle atrophy.
Working in the Harmony module, NASA Flight Engineers Anne McClain and Don Pettit joined each other for regularly scheduled eye checks. McClain took charge as crew medical officer and peered into Pettit’s eyes using standard medical imaging gear as doctors on the ground monitored in real time. Doctors have been continuously monitoring how living in space affects vision due to space-caused fluid shifts toward a crew member’s head applying pressure on the back of eye.
Station Commander Alexey Ovchinin partnered with Fight Engineer Ivan Vagner, both from Roscosmos, at the start of their day and studied methods to refine the orbital outpost’s location in space using Earth photography techniques. Results may enable future spacecraft on missions to the Moon or Mars to navigate without using satellites or mission controllers. Flight Engineer Kirill Peskov worked on building an audio database to train an artificial intelligence system and serviced life support gear throughout the orbital outpost’s Roscosmos segment completing his first full week in space.
Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog, @space_station and @ISS_Research on X, as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.
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